RUTHFULLY YOURS

1. It is with unbearable ease that the foundations of free society can be shaken.

Not too long ago, Brendan Eich, the CEO of Mozilla, was fired from the company, which is responsible for the Firefox browser, among other things. The poor guy was fired because gay and lesbian groups found out that he had once donated $1,000 to the campaign for California Proposition 8, which sought to make same-sex marriage unconstitutional in California by defining marriage as a union between a man and woman.

Though everyone agrees that he never discriminated against anyone in the company on the basis of sexual orientation, he believes that a marriage should be between a man and a woman, heaven forbid. As a result, the liberal fundamentalists threatened to boycott, a move that quickly led to the Eich’s termination.

Moving on. Brandeis University recently decided to award Somalian rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who became famous for her brave battle for women’s rights in the Muslim world, an honorary degree.

But then, the liberal fundamentalists, with freedom of speech burning their throats and the sword of boycotts glistening in their hands, decided to apply immense pressure on the “Jewish” university. They argued that Hirsi Ali was an “Islamophobe” and “racist.” In actuality, Hirsi Ali is an amazing intellectual who, as a Muslim, was subjected to nine circles of hell (she was circumcised and forced to marry against her will, among other things) before she was able to flee to the West. Since then, she has published several books and articles on the big lie often obscured by Western culture: the shameful status of women in the Muslim world and Western naivete when it comes to Islam’s totalitarian aspirations. One of the more vocal feminist leaders, Germaine Greer, coined the saying, “One man’s beautification is another man’s mutilation.” This is true mainly the other way around: Female circumcision, considered to be crime in Western society, is actually completely legitimate in terms of global tyranny of thought. She compared it to our Jewish circumcision.

Unfortunately for her, Hirsi Ali believes something that deviates from the leftist chorus that dictates what is good and right to all of us. The weapon of boycott and silencing was used against her too. And indeed, the cowardly heads of Brandeis University caved to the pressure and rescinded the degree. A great victory for the silencing bullies, but a huge disgrace for the university for being so narrow-minded.

2. Only a year ago, not too far from Brandeis, the Boston Marathon bombing occurred. Three people were murdered and hundreds were hurt. So who was responsible for the attack?

If we use President Barack Obama’s speech last week in commemoration of the event as a reference, we might deduce that it was merely an unfortunate accident, an unspeakable “tragedy.” Predictably, Obama’s speech included a pile of well-known American, Hollywood-style cliches about the Boston spirit and love and a new day and “sing love, not war.”

The leader of the world’s biggest superpower didn’t utter a single word about what really happened there: a terror attack carried out by Muslims in the name of Islam against Americans, and actually against the West. This is the curse of political correctness and the stringent monitoring of language aimed at controlling public opinion. In this instance, one must never mention the words “terror” and “Islam” together. It is under this idea that the global Left is acting feverishly to silence its ideological rivals, even though they would be better served if they joined forces to fight for the existence of the free world.

About 18 months ago, I interviewed Prof. Afshin Ellian, an Iranian law expert and thinker living in Holland after fleeing the ayatollah regime in Iran. Like Hirsi Ali, Ellian has warned the West of the dangers of radical Islam. He, too, has suffered at the hand of the liberal elite, which is consistently unwilling to hear any criticism of Islam, clinging to fanatic multiculturalism where all cultures are equal. Even the most barbaric customs possess a relative truth, and all that tiresome liberal mumbo jumbo.

Isn’t a true liberal society supposed to contain opposing opinions? One can safely assume that the views of Hirsi Ali and Ellian represent a substantial portion of Western society. Do these views not rightfully belong in the legitimate public debate? And what about views denying the idea of global warming? Or the debate surrounding the family unit and the institution of marriage? Is it forbidden to listen to anyone who believes that a marriage should be only between a man and a woman? If so, what, then, is the point of a public debate? No one is asking the global Left for permission to sound these contrary opinions, but a university is supposed to be a pluralistic fortress, a true marketplace of ideas, isn’t it? I guess not.

3. George Orwell wrote his book “1984” about a Soviet-style communist society. Sixteen years earlier, in 1932, Aldous Huxley published his book “A Brave New World,” which also revolved around a totalitarian society, but in this case, one that was ostensibly democratic and liberal. Its totalitarianism manifested itself in its intolerance for any deviation from the dictated liberal line. Later, in the 1960s, everyone wanted to be individualists. But anyone who sought to be an individualist in a way that was different from the herd of the individualists around them, was rejected.

Part of the leftist doctrine on the silencing of rivals holds that they must never be given any public platform to air their views, to avoid granting them “normalcy” within public discourse. Thus the Israeli media consistently prevents radio and television personalities with conservative or right-wing views, not to mention settlers, heaven forbid, from hosting shows during prime time.

During the 1990s, the Left took action to shut down the only channel run by settlers living in Judea and Samaria and Gaza. Today, the Left (together with useful idiots from the Right) is trying to silence Israel Hayom. In the humanities departments of Israel’s universities, they make sure not to open up teaching positions to conservative right-wing lecturers, and they hand out awards only to the people they deem suitable, and so on.

On the other hand, the national radio and television channels are filled with hosts whose world views hail more or less from the same leftist school (to the point of anti-Zionism and radicalism). It is easy to see how civics teacher Adam Verete (who was threatened with dismissal after a student accused him of expressing extreme leftist views in class) quickly became a media darling while the 17-year-old student who dared challenge him became the victim of ridicule. What counts is their respective alignment with rival political camps. From a political perspective, if the situation had been reversed, and a student had refused to bow down to authority and insisted on exercising free thought and criticism , they would have been extolled like a local Jeanne D’Arc. There is no shortage of examples.

It is not Republicans or conservatives who implement McCarthyism — the idea that they do is simply part of the Left’s propaganda machine. The truth is actually exactly the opposite: An overwhelming majority of evil regimes in the world, places where genocide is a matter of routine, were and are regimes with a left-wing orientation. Any company that today dismisses a CEO over his objection to same-sex marriage, will dismiss someone else for possessing other views tomorrow. Anyone who today revokes an honorary degree over critical views of Islam, will revoke a man’s freedom for refusing to agree to some other idea tomorrow.

The danger is that this situation will quickly devolve into violence, because in the absence of a public voice representing common views, and especially the absence of room for radical views of all types — including express denial of the Left’s main beliefs — all that will remain in the public arena will be one, unified legitimate voice with solely leftist nuances. It is over this freedom that the battle is fought.